1978 – THE PERUVIAN ROOF DOG

My Story for today, titled the Peruvian Roof Dog also comes from my time spent in Peru, in the late 70’s. The reason so many of my early memories are from this period, is that my time in Peru started the wandering phase of my life. This period shaped the traveller within me. And broadened out the base of my inquisitive nature and my thirst for knowledge and new experience. In this blog I will pass through this phase soon and onto other periods of our life and travel.

I remember shortly after arrival being assigned an apartment in the city of Arequipa, for use in those periods where we were down from the mountains . We were on the top floor of a 3 story flat topped apartment. One morning, about dawn, on my first day there, I found myself launched out of bed and sitting upright looking for a place to hide. There was a dog barking and making the most vicious noises from what seemed to be about 5 feet away. This was combined with a horrible cacophony of roosters in their death throws. Combined with some loud screaming, apparently for help. Mixed in with 100 taxicab horns blaring, street vendor’s bells ringing, whistles shrieking and race cars blasting by.

This was not helped by a raging hangover and the sudden realization that I was not tucked safely in my bed at my mom’s in Alberta. Rather I had awoke in the middle of some crazy war zone or in the midst of a catastrophe! What the hell? I donned part of my clothes, grabbed the rest and headed for the door. At this point I was still, only, half awake, my heart was in my throat and shear panic had set in. I come flying out of my room heading for evacuation, when I hear a voice saying “what the hell are you doing”.

It was one of my roommates sitting on the couch, newspaper in hand and a coffee in reach. I was stopped in my tracks! I gasped out “didn’t you hear that noise?” “Oh you mean The Peruvian Roof Dog” he said. He then explained that all homes and apartments in the city had a guard dog that spent its life on the roof. The roofs were flat and had a 2 foot wall all around which was just high enough to keep the dogs from making a break for freedom. At the same time small enough to let them look over and down onto the street. Because the roofs were flat topped, the dog could run to all four sides of the house. From there it could keep track of everything happening below.

They were meant as guard dogs put up there to ward off burglars. The houses were made of concrete, the windows had bars and the doors were thick enough to withstand cannon fire. Hence the only way in was up on the roof and in thru the maids entrance. NOTE: (the servants quarters were also on the roof with the dog). Also living up there was the most annoying rooster that each family could find. Now what started this calamity of the morning was innocent enough.

It all started with a street vendor coming around the corner to sell his early morning wares. In Peru you do not become a street vendor unless you have the most loud, obnoxious voice possible. If you can’t make the walls shake with your screaming you don’t get that type of job. And there it starts! The first guy rounds the corner on his bike, pumping a loud horn and screaming “LA PRENSA LA PRENSA LA CRONICA” (the press, the press, the chronicle). He was the newspaper vendor, his voice was a nasal twang, that just made you want to strangle him. He all by himself could have woken the dead!

Then the first Roof Dog on the street sees him and wants to tear him to shreds. Of course it is dawn so the roosters, who have spent all their lives on the roof now start calling for sex. Loudly, I might add. The second dog now joins in. Around the corner comes the morning bread seller, ringing a bell that sounds like he got it from a cathedral. All the time yelling at the top of his lungs “PAN, PAN, PAN COMUN”. Now this really sets the dogs into a frenzy. The first guy has made it halfway down the street. He now has five dogs that want to tear him apart. The roosters crow louder to be heard over the dim of the dogs.

And now comes the first taxi of the day heading for the city centre to start business. No muffler and in a drag race to beat all the others. Now this really pisses off the dogs and they are now in a mouth foaming, killing frenzy. Add a bottle collector, milk salesman with a hand cranked siren and a pot banging kitchenware vendor pushing a cart. All, insanely, screeching out their wares.  Then throw in an old truck grinding his gears and laying on his horn and you have chaos. The sound starts at the corner and approaches like a wave as the first guy makes his way down the street. It reaches a crescendo as he arrives outside your door. There he waits while my buddy goes down and buys a newspaper. Geezus!

I come to find out that the neighbours’ Roof Dog was actually about 5 feet from my very window, separated from me by a 2 foot wall an a 3 foot spacing. Oh how I hated that animal and his buddy the frustrated Rooster. Over time I devised all sorts of ways to entice them to both jump over the wall and down onto the street, but to no avail. Final thought; you might ask how a burglar could ever break into one of these places?

Well let me tell you they did! I think I have it figured out. The hateful little creatures knew the maids and were either brothers, lovers or husbands of them. They then convinced the maids to quiet the Roof Dog and stifle the rooster. Once done they entered the home thru the maids entrance when no one was home and did their evil business. Who better to know that no one was home? You guessed it, The Maid!

I fondly remember one time after we were married when our neighbours’ dog apparently scared a would be thief from our home with his loud and ferocious raging. We went out to see what was going on and were met by the maid. She told us she heard a burglar in her room going thru her stuff, and that she was to afraid to call out so she stayed silent.

Well we started to check out what was missing in the house and come to find out that the only item “stolen” was the maids shoes. That very same pair she used in her village in the Andes and that she walked the many miles in to get to Arequipa for work, hmmmmmm! Ol Bubbaloo bought her a new pair, the poor thing! Well the burglar got away with her shoes, that had a street value, of about the same, as a week old potato peel, the maid got new shoes and I was left thinking “what the hell”!

Another time I rode the company van from Arequipa to the job site. The van stopped at various homes and picked up staff for the ride up into the Andes. It made its circuit early so we were on the road by 7:00 AM. We picked up one of the Peruvian Inspectors and about 20 minutes in, and just before we left the city, he realized he had forgotten something important and had an urgent need to return home, immediately! After loud discussion it was decided that he out ranked the driver and his compatriots in the van, so we turned around and took him home.

He went into his home but very suddenly we hear this loud yelling “ LADRON, LADRON” or “THIEF THIEF”.  There was a loud flurry of activity and the “LADRON” bounded over the wall in his underwear carrying his clothes and hotfooted it down the street and disappeared. Well I thought, that’s strange I wonder if he was stealing a new set of clothes? Hmmmmmmm! I always wonder how he knew there was a “LADRON” breaking in just after he left for work!